Galatians 3 (Wednesday Evening Bible Study)

Galatians 3

• Galatians 3:1-9
• You foolish Galatians! Who has cast a spell on you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? 2 I only want to learn this from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by believing what you heard? 3 Are you so foolish? After beginning by the Spirit, are you now finishing by the flesh? 4 Did you experience so much for nothing—if in fact it was for nothing? 5 So then, does God give you the Spirit and work miracles among you by your doing the works of the law? Or is it by believing what you heard— 6 just like Abraham who believed God, and it was credited to him for righteousness? 7 You know, then, that those who have faith, these are Abraham’s sons. 8 Now the Scripture saw in advance that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and proclaimed the gospel ahead of time to Abraham, saying, All the nations will be blessed through you. 9 Consequently, those who have faith are blessed with Abraham, who had faith.
  • Paul uses a further argument to show that it is faith and not works of the law which puts us right with God. In the early Church, converts nearly always received the Holy Spirit in a visible way. The early chapters of Acts show this happening again and again. There came to them a new surge of life and power that anyone could see
  • That experience had happened to the Galatians and had happened not because they had obeyed the regulations of the law—because at that time they had never heard of the law—but because they had heard the good news of the love of God and had responded to it in an act of perfect trust
  • The easiest way to grasp an idea is to see it embodied in a person. In a sense, ever great word must become flesh. So Paul pointed the Galatians to a man who embodied faith—Abraham
    • He was the man to who God had made the great promise that in him all families of the earth would be blessed. He was the man whom God had specially chosen as the one who pleased Him. How did Abraham especially please God? It was not by doing the works of the law, because at that time the law did not exist; it was by taking God at His word in a great act of faith
    • Now, the promise of blessedness was made to the descendants of Abraham. The Jews relied on that; they held that simple physical descent from Abraham set them on a different footing with God from other people. Paul declares that to be a true descendant of Abraham is not a matter of flesh and blood; the real descendant is the one who makes the same venture of faith. Therefore, it is not those who seek merit through the law who inherit the promise made to Abraham, but those of every nation who repeat his act of faith in God. It was by an act of faith that the Galatians had begun. Sure they are not going to slip back into legalism—and lose their inheritance
  • This passage is full of Greek words with a history, words which carried an atmosphere and a story with them.
    • In verse 1 Pauls speaks about who has cast a spell on you. The Greeks had a great fear of a spell cast by the evil eye. 
    • In the same verse, Paul talks about Jesus being publicly portrayed before them on the cross. It is the word used for putting up a poster. It is actually used for a notice put up by a father to say that he will no longer be responsible for his son’s debts; it is also used for putting up the announcement for an auction
    • In verse 3, Paul talks about beginning their experience in the Spirit and ending it in the flesh. The words he uses are the normal Greek words for beginning and completing a sacrifice. The first is the word for scattering the grains of barely on and around the victim, which was the first act of a sacrifice; and the second is the word used for fully completing the ritual of any sacrifice. By using these two words, Paul shows that he looks on the Christian life as a sacrifice to God
    • In verse 4 he speaks of God giving generously to the Galatians. The rood of this word is the Greek choregia. In ancient times in Greece, at the great festivals, the great dramatists like Euripides and Sophocles presented their plays. Greek plays all have a chorus; to equip and train a chorus was expensive, and public minded Greeks generously offered to pay the entire expenses of the chorus. The gift is described by this word.
      • Later, in wartime, patriotic citizens gave free contributions to the state, and this word was used for this as well. In still later Greet, the word is common in marriage contracts and describes the support that a husband, out of his love, undertakes to give his wife. This word underlines the generosity of God, and generosity which comes from love, of which the love of citizens for their city and of a husband for his wife are pale shadows
• Galatians 3:10-14
• 10 For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, because it is written, Everyone who does not do everything written in the book of the law is cursed. 11 Now it is clear that no one is justified before God by the law, because the righteous will live by faith. 12 But the law is not based on faith; instead, the one who does these things will live by them. 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, because it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree. 14 The purpose was that the blessing of Abraham would come to the Gentiles by Christ Jesus, so that we could receive the promised Spirit through faith.
  • Paul’s argument seeks to drive his opponents into a corner from which there is no escape. “Suppose you decide that you are going to try to win God’s approval by accepting and obeying the law, what is the inevitable consequence?”
    • First of all, those who do that have to stand or fall by their decision; if they choose the law, they have to live by it
    • Second, no one has ever succeeded and no one will ever succeed in always keeping the law
    • Third, that being so, you are cursed, because Scripture itself says that anyone who does not keep the whole law is cursed. Deuteronomy 27:26
    • Therefore, the inevitable result of trying to get right with God by making the law the principle of life is a curse
  • But Scripture has another saying; it is the one who is right with God by faith who will really live (Habakkuk 2:4)
    • The only way to get into a right relationship with God, and therefore the only way to peace, is the way of faith. But the principle of law and the principle of faith are direct opposites. You cannot live your life by both at one and the same time; you must choose; and the only logical choice is to abandon the way of legalism and to venture upon the way of faith, of taking God as His word and of trusting in His love
  • How can we know that this is so?
    • The final guarantor of its truth is Jesus; and to bring this truth to us He had to die upon a cross. Scripture says that everyone who is hanged on a tree is under God’s curse (Deuteronomy 21:23), and so, to free us from the curse o fat claw, Jesus Himself had to become cursed
  • Even at his most involved, and here he is involved, one simple yet tremendous fact is never far from the mind and heart of Paul—the cost of the Christian gospel
    • He could never forget that the peace, liberty, the right relationship with God that we possess, cost the life and death of Jesus—for how could we have ever known what God was like unless Jesus had died to tell us of His great love
• Galatians 3:15-18
• 15 Brothers and sisters, I’m using a human illustration. No one sets aside or makes additions to a validated human will. 16 Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say “and to seeds,” as though referring to many, but referring to one, and to your seed, who is Christ. 17 My point is this: The law, which came 430 years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously established by God and thus cancel the promise. 18 For if the inheritance is based on the law, it is no longer based on the promise; but God has graciously given it to Abraham through the promise.
  • When we read passages like this and the next one, we have to remember that Gaul was trained as a Rabbi, and expert in the scholastic methods of the Rabbinic academies. He could, and did, use their methods of argument, which would be completely convincing to a Jew, however difficult it may be for us to understand them
  • His aim is to show the superiority of the way of grace over the way of the law
    • He begins by showing that the way of grace is older than the way of law. When Abraham mad his venture of faith, God made His great promise to him. That is to say, God’s promise was the result of an act of faith; the law did not come until the time of Moses, 430 years later
    • But—Paul goes on to argue—once a covenant has ben duly ratified, you cannot alter it or add additional clauses to it. Therefore, the later law cannot alter the earlier way of faith. It was faith which set Abraham right with God; and faith is still the only way for men and women to set themselves right with God
  • The rabbis were very fond of using arguments which depended on the interpretation o single words; they would construct a whole theology on one word
    • Paul takes one word in the Abraham story and builds an argument upon it. Paul’s argument is the word seed is used in the singular and not in the plural, and that, therefore, God’s promise points not to a great crowd of people but to one single individual; and—Paul argues—the one person in whom the covenant finds its fulfillment is Jesus. Therefore the way to peace with God is the way of faith which Abraham took; and we must repeat that way by looking to Jesus in faith
  • Again and again, Paul comes back to the same point
    • The problem of human life is to get into a right relationship with God. As long as we are afraid of Him, there can be no peace. How are we to achieve this right relationship? Is it by a meticulous and even self-torturing obedience to the law, by performing endless actions and observing every smallest regulation the law lays down? If we take that way, we will always be in default, for human imperfection can never fully satisfy God’s perfection; but, if we abandon this hopeless struggle and bring ourselves and our sin to God, His grace opens its arms to us and we find ourselves at peace with God who is no longer judge but father
    • Paul’s argument is that this is what happened to Abraham. It was on that basis that God’s covenant with Abraham was made; and nothing that came in later can change that covenant any more than anything can alter a will that has already been witnessed and signed
• Galatians 3:19-22
• 19 Why, then, was the law given? It was added for the sake of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise was made would come. The law was put into effect through angels by means of a mediator. 20 Now a mediator is not just for one person alone, but God is one. 21 Is the law therefore contrary to God’s promises? Absolutely not! For if the law had been granted with the ability to give life, then righteousness would certainly be on the basis of the law. 22 But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin’s power, so that the promise might be given on the basis of faith in Jesus Christ to those who believe.
  • This is one of the most difficult passages Paul ever wrote—so difficult that there are almost 300 different interpretations of it. Paul is still seeking to demonstrate the superiority of the way of grace and faith over the way of law. He makes four points about the law
    • Why introduce the law at all?
      • It was introduced, as Paul puts it, for the sake of transgressions. What he means is that where there is no law there is no sin. People cannot be condemned for doing wrong if they did not know that it was wrong. Therefore the function of the law is to define sin. But while the law can and does define sin, it can do nothing whatever to cure it. It is like a doctor who is an expert in diagnosing illness but who is helpless to clear up the trouble which has been diagnosed
    • The law as not given direct by God
      • From Exodus 20, the law was given direct to Moses; but in the days of Paul, the rabbis were so impressed by the holiness and remoteness of God that they believed that it was impossible for Him to deal direct with men and women; therefore they introduced the idea that the law was given first to angels and then by the angels to Moses (Acts 7:53; Hebrews 2:2) Paul is using the Rabbinic ideas of his time. The law is distance from God by two stages. It is given first to angels, and then to a mediator; and the mediator is Moses. Compared with the promise, which was given directly by God, the law comes as second-hand
    • Now we come to difficult sentence. “Now a mediator is not just for one person alone, but God is one.”
      • What is Paul’s idea here? AN agreement founded on law always involves two people—the person who give it and the person who accepts it—and it depends on both sides keeping it. That was the position of those who put their trust in the law. Great the law, and the whole agreement was undone. But a promise depends on only one person. The way of grace depends entirely on God; it is Hi promise. We can do nothing to alter that. We may sin, but the love and grace of God stands unchanged. To Paul, it was the weakness of the law that it depended on two people—the law-give and the law-keeper—and human beings had wrecked it. Grace is entirely from God; we cannot undo it; and surely it is better to depend on the grace of the unchanging God than on the hopeless efforts of helpless human beings
    • Is then, the law opposed to grace?
      • Logically, the answer is yes. But Paul answers no. He says that Scripture has imprisoned everyone under sin. He is thinking of Deuteronomy 27:26 where it is said that everyone who does not conform to the words of the law is cursed. In fact, that means everyone, because no one has ever kept, or will ever perfectly keep, the law
      • What then is the consequence of the law? It is to drive everyone to seek grace, because it has proved human helplessness. This is a though that Paul will soon develop in the next chapter, here, he only suggests it. Let anyone try to get into a right relationship with God via the law. Those who make the attempt will find they cannot do it and will be driven to see all they can do is to accept the wonderful grace of which Jesus came to tell all people
• Galatians 3:23-29
• 23 Before this faith came, we were confined under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith was revealed. 24 The law, then, was our guardian until Christ, so that we could be justified by faith. 25 But since that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26 for through faith you are all sons of God in Christ Jesus. 27 For those of you who were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ. 28 There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; since you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to the promise.
  • Paul is still thinking of the essential part that the law did play in the plan of God
    • In the Greek world, there was a household servant called the paidagogos. He was not the teacher. He was usually an old and trusted slave who had been in the family for a long time and how was well respected. He was in charge of the children’s moral welfare, and it was his duty to see that they acquired the qualities essential to mature adulthood. He had on particular duty; every day, he had to take the children to and from school. He had nothing to do with the actual teaching of the children, but it was his duty to take them in safety to the school and deliver them to the teacher
    • That was like the function of the law. It was there to lead people to Christ. It could don’t take them into Christ’s presence, but it could take them into a position where they might enter for themselves. It was the function of the law to bring men and women to Christ by showing them that by themselves they were quite unable to keep it. But once people had come to Christ, they no longer needed the law, for now they were dependent not on law but on grace
  • For those of you who were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ
    • There are two pictures here. Baptism was a Jewish rite. If a man wanted to accept the Jewish faith, he had to do three things. He had to be circumcised, to offer sacrifice, and to be baptized. Ceremonial washing to cleanse from defilement was common practice in Judaism
      • The details of Jewish baptism were as follows. The man to be baptized cut his hair and his nails; he undressed completely; the baptismal bath had to contain 280 liters of water. Every part of the body had to be touched with the water
      • He made confession of his faith before three men who were called fathers of baptism. While he was still in the water, parts of the law were read to him, words of encouragement were addressed to him, and blessings were pronounced upon him. When he emerged, he was a member of the Jewish faith; it was through baptism that he entered into that faith
    • By Christian baptism, individuals entered into Christ. The early Christians looked on baptism as something which produced a real union with Christ. Baptism was (and is still) not simply something that was done to the outside of the person; it was a real union with Christ
    • Paul goes on to say that they had put on Christ. There may be a reference here to a custom which certainly existed later. The people being baptized were clothed in pure white robes, symbolic of the new life into which they entered. Just as the initiates put on their new white robes, their lives were clothed with Christ
    • The result is that in the Church there was no difference between any of the members; they had all become children of God. In verse 28, Paul says that the distinction between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female is wiped out. There is something of great interest here. In the Jewish morning prayer, which Paul would have used all his pre-Christian life, a Jewish man thanks God that you have not made me a Gentile, slave, or woman. Paul takes that prayer and reverses it. The old distinctions have gone; all are now one in Christ
  • We have already seen in verse 16 that Paul interprets the promises made to Abraham as especially finding their fulfillment in Christ; and if we are one with Christ, we also inherit the promises—and this great privilege comes not by a legalistic keeping of the law, but by an act of faith in the free grace of God
  • Only one thing can wipe out the increasingly sharp distinctions and separations between individuals and between peoples; when all are debtors to God’s grace and all are in Christ, only then will all be one. It is not human effort but the love of God which alone can unite a disunited world